Q&A with Tull Sound Engineer Chris Amson

[Deleted]

Lots of great Q&A's going on here right now!
Let's keep it going. Good News! Longtime Tull sound engineer Chris Amson has agreed to answer some questions for the board!

I'm sure many of you have heard his name before. If you're not familiar with Chris, he joined Tull in April 1972 during the Thick As A Brick tour. His first gig with them was at Colston Hall in Bristol, England. He started out helping set up the tape effects during the shows he then moved up to doing the entire front of the house mix! (Chris gained his experience mixing from doing the support acts like Captain Beefheart and the Sensational Alex Harvey Band) The first time he actually mixed the sound for Tull was in the Richfield Coliseum, 20,000 capacity!

Chris was Tull's sound engineer trough the heyday until 1981 and then came back for a couple of tours in 1987. Chris is a great guy and he has hundreds of stories from the road and working with Ian and the boys on a personal/professional level for many years. If you saw a Tull in the 70's he was likely doing the mix. He was there at the Chateau near Paris in France for the recording of the first version of Passion Play. Also the Paris 75 concert which was filmed for videodisc. He is seen in the 1979 BBC documentary and is credited on the Bursting Out LP among other things. So there should be a ton of interesting questions we can come up with to ask him.
Questions can be of either the technical nature, for instance What was Ian's home quad setup like. Or how he introduced the band to the synthesizer? Or about his personal experiences with Tull or touring etc.. anything you like. Should be very interesting so fire away and I will send the questions off to him when we have around 8-10.

[Deleted]

wow great job for getting Chris to answer some questions for the board!! Thanks

Hi Chris..Thanks for taking the time to answer a few questions for us.

My question is during the time of recording at the Chateau in73 how much of the recording was actually used.Did any of the music for the Warchild film ever get recorded and where you asked to do any of i

Charlie from Boston

Thanks again for answering a few questions

[Deleted]

Nice job to get Chris for the Q&A, huge kudos!

I'll put my thinking cap on and see what I can come up with. Thanks again for arranging it.

[Deleted]

Chris,

you were obviously with Tull during one of the most creative periods any band could have gone through. How nuch of that creativity was down to group involvement? We know all ablout the processes associated with sime of the aborted projects such as The Chateau D'Herouville episode but were you involved with or aware of any of the preparation work prior to the abadoned 1st attampt at 'A Passion Play'?

From your position with the band do you have any insight as to how the themes developed into Warchild, there exists some 8mm clips of the band in costume, as if on a film set, to your knowledge was anything else from A Passion Play or Warchild filmed?

We have seen a couple of tracks released in orcehestral form, Warchild and Warchild Waltz, as Charlie asks above, were you involved, whether it be in demo run throughs, rehersals or recording of material and if so, any tales to tell?

[Deleted]

Hi Chris, thanks for taking the time for this.

You sound like the guy I wanted to talk to in 1973! Being an inspired flute player back then I spent a lot of time and effort in trying to emulate some of the sound I was hearing from Ian's Flute on stage back then. Reverbs and delays in particular. I had an echoplex but realized Ian's delay was very customized to his performance. I saw a few foot pedals and switches at his feet. I'm imagining he was controlling echo speed and volume with a couple of the pedals, and he had that curious "interrupter" that made the "dut dut dut dut" in any thing he played through it, heard on the Thick as a Brick album itself and used in his solos for a couple of years, what was that thing?
Could you describe for us what Ian's set up was (what kind of delay was that?) and how he controlled it all?
I also loved the amount of volume he had on the flute in the midst of a very "big" band mix.
Can you tell us a little about the challenges you had between acoustic and electric instruments?
You are credited with the "synthesis" on the Passion Play album and I understand you played a large part with getting them into the Moogs in 73.
I enjoyed Tulls early synth use much more than its later involvement.
In listening to various bootlegs of 73 the opening of A Passion Play seemed to vary each night. Was this by design? Was John searching for patches?
How comfortable and or eager was John Evan to use the Moogs and get into Synths in general, Was it his idea or Ian's?
What was a high point with your involvement with the band or your proudest day?
And what was your worst day?

Thanks so much for taking our questions
Darin in Los Angeles

[Deleted]

Great questions so far, keep em coming.

Darin, I had asked him similar questions in the past. Apperantly Ian setup the board himself and did his soundchecks at the mixing desk. Also i believe the foot switches by Ian's feet were the tape effects I'm sure Chris will be able to expand on all this.

[Deleted]

Sept 9, 2012 16:07:07 GMT -5 @tulltapes said:

Great questions so far, keep em coming.

Darin, I had asked him similar questions in the past. Apperantly Ian setup the board himself and did his soundchecks at the mixing desk. Also i believe the foot switches by Ian's feet were the tape effects I'm sure Chris will be able to expand on all this.

btw
Anyone else viewing a wide format of this page that makes you have to scroll from side to side to read? annoying!

During his flute solos he had a lot of control over his effects and it had to be with volume type pedals with potentiometers to bring up the volume of the echo or lower it , plus control the speed of the echo, he had to be doing it himself and his hands were full.mYou know what I mean

How's the rehearsals for the TAAB show with LWTP going?
Darin

[Deleted]

Sept 9, 2012 16:35:11 GMT -5 @darincody said:

Sept 9, 2012 16:07:07 GMT -5 @tulltapes said:

Great questions so far, keep em coming.

Darin, I had asked him similar questions in the past. Apperantly Ian setup the board himself and did his soundchecks at the mixing desk. Also i believe the foot switches by Ian's feet were the tape effects I'm sure Chris will be able to expand on all this.

btw
Anyone else viewing a wide format of this page that makes you have to scroll from side to side to read? annoying!

During his flute solos he had a lot of control over his effects and it had to be with volume type pedals with potentiometers to bring up the volume of the echo or lower it , plus control the speed of the echo, he had to be doing it himself and his hands were full.mYou know what I mean

How's the rehearsals for the TAAB show with LWTP going?
Darin

Rehearsals have been going well but you know it's actually very difficult with some band members living halfway across the country. We also have another new member on Keys who is learning a boatload of material as quickly as possible. We are not doing the entire Brick but we are doing all of side one and some of side 2. Also a first with Hunting Girl and Budapest for the second time ever, first time since we played it with Peggy in 2008, Not to mention a whole other set of music. I think we're as ready as possible. I know I'm ready to have some fun.

[Zombywoof]

Did Anderson and the band record any shows?

[flutecake]

A quick question for Chris.

Since 1984 I have been a Tull fan and every year Tull has toured I was usually less than 10 rows back from the stage. That being said in the 80's I had always noticed in front of the stage in the middle of the floor no farther than maybe 10 rows back is the sound board area. Now next to the sound board was ALWAYS a video camera I always assumed this was the sound crew taping every show yet not any of these have surfaced. Are we led to believe all Tull shows have been taped? And if so did any survive? Does Ian have them in some vault? Or were they all taped over, lost or was the crew just looking through a camera but not taping the show?

[Zombywoof]

What was it like working with Beefheart from an engineering perspective?

[Sparty]

My question for Chris. This is more of a prospective than retrospective question, and it contains two parts: (1) What is your assessment of the sound engineering on TAAB2, both overall and specifically regarding vocals; (1a) In your estimation, what kinds of unique sound engineering challenges might Ian's present age- and performance-related vocal evolution pose for future recordings? Thank you for your time and consideration in answering this question, and thank you also for your services to our favorite band.

[skytzo]

Hopefully I'm not too late with this question.....

Chris,
Thanks for taking the time to chat with us. I play a little drums here and there, but oddly my question is related to keyboards. Tulltapes stated that you were responsible for introducing the band to synthesizers (Moogs, I assume). I'm very interested in hearing that back story on that as far as how quickly John took to it from a technical standpoint and how Ian initially envisioned it being incorporated into the music. To my ear, nothing sounds better than the original analog synths. Along those lines, do you know if either John or Ian ever seriously considered incorporating Mellotron into the band's sound? Other than Witches Promise and the intro to Cross-Eyed Mary, Mellotron was never featured as far as I know. Was Ian concious of not wanting to sound too much like the other contemporary prog bands who heavily featured Mellotron sounds, was it a technical issue R.E. touring since they were known to be unreliable with the tapes, or did John simply not care for playing them?

Thanks,
Jeff from Connecticut

[Deleted]

Thanks for your questions everyone. They have been sent off to Chris and he will send back his reply's in time.

[camson]

Greetings!
I apologize for taking so long to get back to everyone with the questions that Erin sent to me from the members of this Tull Board.
I just wanted to say hello and I'll answer them all as best as I can. I joined the Jethro Tull crew in early 1972 when I was 20 years old, and and my first concert was at Colston Hall in Bristol. The show was Thick as a Brick. I worked with them for the next 11 years.
I'll sign off just now and will be back in a day or 2 to get stuck in.
Cheers, Chris.

[Deleted]

Welcome to the board Chris! Glad you made it in. Great! Some of the biggest Tull fans in here. I'm sure nobody minds if you answer any questions you can at your own pace. Your insight from 11 years on tour with Tull in their prime is invaluable. It will be great to have you around.

[Deleted]

Welcome Chris....thanks for dropping in !!


We look forward to your observations and answering a few of our questions, again many thanks from all of us.

[Deleted]

A BIG WELCOME to Chris and all our recent new member's.

Think it's been a bit quiet lately?
Not to worry, we've been working on a few things and we'll all be back shortly. ;D

[TM]

Hi Chris, and thanks for signing on!

I look forward to learning about your profession and time with Tull.

Cheers.

Paul

[camson]

Okay! Here's Part-1:
Hi Darin - The set up that I remember Ian using in the earlier days consisted of a Binson Echorec and a Vibrato. Both of these effects were on his vocal mic. The vocal mic that he always used back then was a Shure SM56. It's like an SM58, but permanently attached to the mic stand. BTW, the mic stand that he always used was a single vertical hydraulic type. It never had a boom on it. There was of course the condenser mic on a boom stand for his acoustic guitar, which also had a pick-up on it. I don't remember much about the pick-up on the guitar as I think that Ian probably experimented with different ones from time to time. Barcus Berry comes to mind as being one that he used the most.
There were different echo cues for each song and the echo settings were changed by Fraser Aitken who had as one of his duties the title of Monitor engineer on our small crew. Fraser had his Monitor equipment set up downstage Left.
Ian had a custom pedal board at his feet that was fairly plain and built by Dave Morris who was the electronic wizard in the crew. On the board was an cast aluminum box with three buttons on the top and a volume-style pedal at the right hand side of the box. One button turned the Binson echo signal on and off. Another button turned the Vibrato on and off. The vibrato speed was controlled by the foot pedal. The third button was the remote start for the 2 x Revox A77 reel to reel tape machines that were out at the Front of House Mixing Board. One of my duties when I started with them was to sit out at the mixing board during the show and cue up the next tape effect after the previous one had been played. The tape segments were all joined together in sequence with sections of blank leader tape between them. We just used one A77 at a time. The other one was there as a backup.
Okay, jumping forward to when I was mixing the Front of House. For Ian's vocal mic I received a clean signal and an effects signal. Channels 1 and 2 on the mixer. I would get a balance on the 2 levels during the Sound Check. It was always easy to get loads of level on Ian's vocal mic because he had impeccable mic technique and was always right on top of it, especially when playing the flute. You could make the level of the flute and his vocals as loud as you needed, regardless of the size of the venue. There was never a problem there. End of Part-1. I'll carry on with more and the challenges in the Part-2!
P.S. Feel free to keep asking questions! There are areas that I wasn't involved in, but I'll cover what I know.

[camson]

I'll come back to Part-2 for Darin.

This is in response to Charlie's question:

Hi Charlie from Boston,

Regarding the first recording of Passion Play at the Chateau. Everything seemed to go smoothly there. I didn't hear of any issues at the time.
It was later on that I heard that there were some problems with the audio quality of the Chateau recordings.
I got the impression that it might have had something to do with incorrect alignment of the heads on the multitrack tape machine at the Chateau studio.
I had no involvement with studio recordings except for the sequencer intro piece on Passion Play. Nothing with Warchild.

[Deleted]

Chris
Thank you very much for the detailed answer! As I said I needed to talk to you in 73! Or maybe have my own Mr. Morris helping me out. I remember very well Ian being able to shake the rafters with his voice and his flute. His low C (middle C!) I could feel in my chest. Binson must've been an english product? I believe I have seen pictures of one.
Well I look forward to part 2. Take your time. We really appreciate your talking with us
Thanks again.
Darin from LA
(at the Forum and elsewhere every time Tull came out from 71 on)

PS What do you do now?

[Deleted]

Ahh, I didn't know Ian used the Binson for his echo. Very interesting. Binson Echorec's were very early analog echo machines from Italy. They did not use tape loops but an alloy drum driven by a motor. Very unique delay sounds. I have an old Roland Space Echo which is similar but uses tape. I knew about the echorecs as they were used by every member of Pink Floyd in the late 60's early 70's. I didn't know Ian used one. Great info Chris. In the pic below you can see David Gilmour's at the very top of his rig.

[camson]

Hi Jeff (from Connecticut)

When I started with Tull the only keyboards on stage were a Grand Piano and a Hammond Organ with one Leslie. In the early days the piano would have been provided by the promoter. Later on we carried one around with us in a huge flight case which was a technological marvel complete with steel cables and winches to get it from it's upright position in the case down onto the stage horizontally. We also had a piano tuner who travelled with us in my later years.

A note about micing up the grand piano: In the early days we only had mics on the piano. Later we also had a Helpinstill piano pickup.
The mics that we used originally were 2 pretty basic Sony condenser mics and each day I would make 2 sets of saddles out of Gaffer Tape across the top of the harp and tape the mics in place so that they lay parallel to the strings. I don't know what kind of pattern these mice had. Probably fairly Omni-directional, and this was not necessarily the best position for them but we needed to get them completely inside the piano so that we could put the lid down in order to get the level needed without feedback. When the Helpinstill pickup was added it was a great addition because now we could get the Piano to cut through more. There would have been a mix of the 2 mics for warmth and the pickup for penetration!
I wasn't mixing the sound back then. The FOH mixer was a gentleman called Alan Mc.Kenzie who came from the Polydor Records studio world.

Later in 1972 or early 1973 the band all moved to Montreaux, Switzerland and I remember that Claude Nobs, who founded the Montreux Jazz festival set us up with a rehearsal area in an old brick factory in Montreux. (Claude recently passed away duo to a Skiing accident last Christmas) These were the rehearsals prior to the recording of the 1st Passion Play album, and I had a VCS3 synth in London and brought it to Montreux to show the band.

John checked it out and it was quickly determined that it was a royal pain keeping it in tune. These early analog synths were notorious for being affected by the ambient temperature which threw the tuning off. It was decided that the VCS3 would not be suitable for live performance but at that time the Mini Moog also just came out and that was tried as well.
The Mini Moog was also a bit susceptible to tuning problems but it was felt that this could be used live on stage and so the band got one originally, and later got another one. So now the Hammond Organ had a Mini Moog on top of it, and I think John Evan quite liked paying it.

I do remember times after the sound check where he would spend quite a lot of time every few days with his headphones on tweaking all the little preset potentiometers inside trying to to get all the tuning back in line. A VCS3 was never used on stage.
I do remember seeing a Mellotron in the Tull workshop, but whilst I was with them there was never a Mellotron on stage. It was probably used in the studio as you mentioned on those songs. I don't have any idea as to Ian's reasoning for not using one on stage. I never heard it discussed.
He's an independent thinker and would have done whatever he felt was needed to get the music across. However, they did seem to be fairly fragile with all those tape loops hanging down inside. I know that the Moody Blues must have used one successfully on stage as it's the cornerstone of their sound.

[Deleted]

Jul 24, 2013 13:59:56 GMT -5 camson said:

Hi Jeff (from Connecticut)

When I started with Tull the only keyboards on stage were a Grand Piano and a Hammond Organ with one Leslie. In the early days the piano would have been provided by the promoter. Later on we carried one around with us in a huge flight case which was a technological marvel complete with steel cables and winches to get it from it's upright position in the case down onto the stage horizontally. We also had a piano tuner who travelled with us in my later years.

A note about micing up the grand piano: In the early days we only had mics on the piano. Later we also had a Helpinstill piano pickup.
The mics that we used originally were 2 pretty basic Sony condenser mics and each day I would make 2 sets of saddles out of Gaffer Tape across the top of the harp and tape the mics in place so that they lay parallel to the strings. I don't know what kind of pattern these mice had. Probably fairly Omni-directional, and this was not necessarily the best position for them but we needed to get them completely inside the piano so that we could put the lid down in order to get the level needed without feedback. When the Helpinstill pickup was added it was a great addition because now we could get the Piano to cut through more. There would have been a mix of the 2 mics for warmth and the pickup for penetration!
I wasn't mixing the sound back then. The FOH mixer was a gentleman called Alan Mc.Kenzie who came from the Polydor Records studio world.

Later in 1972 or early 1973 the band all moved to Montreaux, Switzerland and I remember that Claude Nobs, who founded the Montreux Jazz festival set us up with a rehearsal area in an old brick factory in Montreux. (Claude recently passed away duo to a Skiing accident last Christmas) These were the rehearsals prior to the recording of the 1st Passion Play album, and I had a VCS3 synth in London and brought it to Montreux to show the band.

John checked it out and it was quickly determined that it was a royal pain keeping it in tune. These early analog synths were notorious for being affected by the ambient temperature which threw the tuning off. It was decided that the VCS3 would not be suitable for live performance but at that time the Mini Moog also just came out and that was tried as well.
The Mini Moog was also a bit susceptible to tuning problems but it was felt that this could be used live on stage and so the band got one originally, and later got another one. So now the Hammond Organ had a Mini Moog on top of it, and I think John Evan quite liked paying it.

I do remember times after the sound check where he would spend quite a lot of time every few days with his headphones on tweaking all the little preset potentiometers inside trying to to get all the tuning back in line. A VCS3 was never used on stage.
I do remember seeing a Mellotron in the Tull workshop, but whilst I was with them there was never a Mellotron on stage. It was probably used in the studio as you mentioned on those songs. I don't have any idea as to Ian's reasoning for not using one on stage. I never heard it discussed.
He's an independent thinker and would have done whatever he felt was needed to get the music across. However, they did seem to be fairly fragile with all those tape loops hanging down inside. I know that the Moody Blues must have used one successfully on stage as it's the cornerstone of their sound.

I think the mellotrons were much more of a hassle to take out becuase of tunings and tape loops speeding up etc.. I have heard this before from other bands. Nowadays you can get the original authentic mellotron loop samples and use them on stage (as a VST) with just a laptop.